Can't Restore from external drive

I have purchased a small external (20GB) hard drive to do my TI backups on. I have only one internal hard drive (C), which is running just fine.

I was anxious to do an entire backup of everything on that drive (OS included) in the event of a PC crash.

I have just done a full backup on the new external drive and have tried to do a restore to that same drive - my logic being that, once a restore is done to that drive, I should be able to select F8 on boot-up, selecting this same drive, and that the 'restore' will boot into my OS. I'm new to all this, so bear with me please.

However, TI did not allow me to restore files to the new external drive, as it said the archives were on the 'same drive as the destination restore drive.'

It seems to me that the only option I have is to try restoring any archives is restoring them to my C: drive - and if the restore does not work, I will have wiped out my entire hard drive!

Is there any way around the problem of being absolutely sure that a restore will work successfully, or do you have to just hope for the best?

1. Make a folder on your internal drive named "Backup Test".
2. Create the image backup in that folder.
3. Replace your internal drive with the new drive.
4. Connect your internal drive as a slave drive.
5. Use a rescue disc to restore the image on the slave drive to the new drive.
6. If successful, then you know the backup in the "Backup Test" folder is good.
7. Return drives to original positions & boot from your normal internal drive.
8. Quick format your external drive.
9. Copy the .tib files in the "Backup Test" folder to the external drive.

I think that you would then have a known working backup on your external drive. In the future you should be able to just create backup images directly on your external drive with confidence.